Fuel Tank for Final Space Shuttle Mission Arrives at Launch Site

by SPACE.com Staff | September 29, 2010 01:09pm ET

The external fuel tank for the space shuttle's last scheduled mission was carried from the Pegasus barge into the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010.Credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller

The external fuel tank for what could
be the last mission of
NASA's space shuttle program rolled into an assembly building at the
Kennedy
Space Center in Florida yesterday (Sept. 28).

Technicians at Kennedy will now
process and stack the tank
in preparation for the launch of the shuttle Endeavour to the International
Space Station on Feb. 26, 2011, NASA officials said.

The tank is about 154 feet (47
meters) long and 28 feet (8.5
meters) wide and weighs nearly 60,000 pounds (27,273
kilograms) when empty. It
arrived in Florida Monday from a NASA facility in New Orleans.

When full, the tank will contain
liquid hydrogen and liquid
oxygen, which will power Endeavour's engines during liftoff and ascent.
The
tank will be flanked by twin solid rocket boosters strapped to the
orbiter's
sides, which will also help carry the shuttle aloft.

The tank and boosters will be
jettisoned and fall back to
Earth after Endeavour's initial push to the sky. Unlike the boosters,
however,
the external tank will not be collected and reused.

Endeavour is slated to deliver a
nearly $2 billion astrophysics
experiment designed to study cosmic rays from the space station. The
STS-134
mission will also deposit some spare parts for the outpost.

Endeavour's flight is the last
scheduled shuttle mission and
one of only
two remaining on the docket.

Congress, however, is discussing the
possibility of an extra
mission, to be flown by the shuttle Atlantis sometime next year. The
Senate has
approved the additional flight, but the measure has yet to make it
through the
House.

The shuttle Discovery is scheduled to
lift off Nov. 1 on an
11-day mission to the space station.

Discovery is expected to deliver a
storage room to the space
station, along with a humanoid robot assistant for the outpost's
astronaut
crew.